Fenwick, caught by some memory or association he could not define or give its place to, for the moment looked at neither of his companions. Rosalind, only too clear about all the postscript of the letter had brought before her own mind, saw reason to dread its effect on his. The linking of the name of Penderfield and that of the clergyman who had married them at Umballa--a name that, two days since, had had a familiar sound to him when she incautiously uttered it--was using Suggestion to bait a trap for Memory. She felt she was steering through shoal-waters perilously near the wind; but she made no attempt to break his reverie. She might do as much harm as good. She only watched his face, feeling its contrast to that of the absorbed and happy merpussy, rejoicing in the fortunate outcome of her friend's anxieties. It was a great relief when, with a deep breath and a shake, akin to a horse's when the flies won't take a hint, Fenwick flung off the oppression, whatever it was, and came back into the living world on a stepping-stone of the back-talk. "Well done, Paganini! Nothing like it since Orpheus and Eurydice--only this time it was Proserpine, not Pluto, that had to be put to sleep.... What's the matter, darling? Anything wrong?" "Nothing at all. I was looking at you." "Well, _I'm_ all right!" And Sally looked up from her letter for a moment to say, "There's nothing the matter with Jeremiah," and went on reading as before. Sally's attitude about him always implied a kind of proprietorship, as in a large, fairly well-behaved dog. Rosalind felt glad she had not looked at _her_. Presently Fenwick said: "Now, who's coming for a walk with me?" But Sally was off directly to find the Swiss girl she sometimes bathed with, and Rosalind thought it would be nice in a sheltered place on the beach. She really wanted to be alone, and knew the shortest way to this was to sit still, especially in the morning; but Gerry had better get Vereker to go for a walk. Perhaps she would look in at his mother's later. So Fenwick, after a customary caution to Sally not to drown herself, went away to find Conrad, as he generally called him now. Rosalind was shirking a problem she dared not face from a cowardly conviction of its insolubility. What would she do if Gerry should, without some warning, identify her? She had to confess to herself that she had no clue at all to the effect it would have, coming suddenly, on him. She could at least imagine aspects, attitudes, tones of voice for him if it came slowly; but she could not supply any image of him, under other circumstances, not more or less founded on her recollections of twenty years ago. Might she not lose him again, as she lost him then? She _must_ get nearer to safety than she was now. Was she not relying on the house not catching fire instead of negotiating insurance policies or providing fire extinguishers?